The Israeli military said Saturday that three rockets were launched from Syria toward Israeli territory, a rare attack from the country's northeastern neighbor that comes after days of escalating violence on multiple fronts.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the rocket launches, which caused no damage or casualties. Only one rocket managed to cross into Israeli territory and landed in a field in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, the Israeli military said. Fragments of another destroyed missile fell into Jordanian territory near the Syrian border, Jordan's military reported.
In Syria, an adviser to President Bashar Assad described the rocket strikes as "part of the previous, present and continuing response to the brutal enemy."ISRAEL TERROR ATTACK IN TEL AVIV LEAVES THREE DEAD, MULTIPLE INJURED AFTER CAR RAMS INTO CROWD
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli security forces fatally shot a 20-year-old Palestinian in the town of Azzun, Palestinian health officials said, stirring protests in the area. The Israeli military said troops fired at Palestinians hurling stones and explosive devices. The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the Palestinian killed as Ayed Salim.
His death came at a time of unusually heightened violence in the West Bank. Over 90 Palestinians and have been killed by Israeli fire so far this year, at least half of them affiliated with militant groups, according to a tally by The Associated Press.
Palestinian attacks on Israelis have killed 19 people in that time — including on Friday two British-Israelis shot to death near a settlement in the Jordan Valley and an Italian tourist killed by a suspected car-ramming in Tel Aviv. All but one were civilians
The rocket fire from Syria comes against the backdrop of soaring Israeli-Palestinian tensions touched off by an Israeli police raid on Jerusalem's most sensitive site, the sacred compound home to the Al-Aqsa mosque. That outraged Palestinians marking the holy fasting month of Ramadan and prompted militants in Lebanon — as well as Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip — to fire a heavy barrage of rockets into Israel.
In retaliation, Israeli warplanes struck sites allegedly linked to the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza and southern Lebanon.
Late Saturday, tensions ran high in Jerusalem as a few hundred Palestinian worshippers barricaded themselves in the mosque, which sits on a hilltop in the heart of Jerusalem's Old City sacred to both Muslims and Jews. Israeli police efforts to evict the worshippers locked in the mosque overnight with stockpiled firecrackers and stones spiraled into unrest in the holy site earlier this week.ISRAEL LAUNCHES AIRSTRIKES ON HAMAS TUNNELS AND WEAPON SITES IN GAZA STRIP